I again got up late and I didn’t leave my hotel until around 11. Since I was running late and I still had a flight to catch, I paired down my itinerary to the main things I wanted to do, which was tour the Capitol Building and try the buffalo that my dad raved about. Our first stop on the tour was a large quilt hanging on the wall. This is the Women’s Gold Wall Hanging. On it are 18 women who were influential in Colorado’s history. It took over a year to make, and it toured the state where volunteers allowed people from every part of Colorado to add the embroidery to it. So literally over a hundred people created the quilt. Our guide also told us a couple of the women’s stories. Like Mother Elizabeth Seton, who was the first native-born American to be canonized into a saint. Next we passed through the gallery of governors, which were just painted pictures of them on the walls. Our guide stopped us to point out the red marble. I had noticed how pretty it was before. It is Colorado Rose Onyx, which was mined in Colorado. It is so rare that mine is the only place it was found in the world. In fact, the marble was complete exhausted in that mine to build the Capitol Building. So the Colorado Capitol is the only place in the world where you can find that type of marble. There wasn’t enough marble to finish the Capitol, so they had to import marble from Italy that was similar in color, but didn’t have the veins of the rose onyx in order to complete the building. Next we walked up to the 3rd floor inside the dome part of the building. In a circle around the dome are portraits of all of the presidents of the United States. I couldn’t help but notice that Trump didn’t have a portrait. Our guide explained that the Colorado government doesn’t contribute funds for the portraits, so the portraits are commissioned with private donations. Right now, they have about half the funds they need to add the portrait of Trump. Our guide also told us how the original portrait of Abraham Lincoln was stolen in the 1990s and has never been recovered. Luckily, the original artist was still alive then and was able to paint another one. However, he refused to sign the new portrait so if the stolen painting is ever found people will be able to tell the difference between the 2. We were running short on time, so we next went straight to the dome. One of the perks of the tour is going up into the dome, since you can only go on a tour. Otherwise it is closed to the public. The dome was really nice. On the inside of the dome, they hung pictures of influential Coloradans. And there is a balcony surrounding the dome so you can look out on the city of Colorado. You can also see the mountains way off in the distance. It was really nice. This was the end of the tour, so after that we were free to roam around the capitol. Since I was on a tight schedule, I went ahead and left. While we were on the tour, our guide mentioned that there was a plaque outside that shows were the capitol sits 1 mile above sea level. So I took a quick detour to sit by the plaque. Next, I got in my car and drove to Ted’s Montana Grill. I had looked online to find a steakhouse that served buffalo at a price that wasn’t too expensive. I got the cheapest option, which was the 8oz. bison chopped steak. It was amazing! The meat had so much flavor and was so tender that I wished I could order another one. Buffalo is way better than cow. I’m now hoping that work takes me somewhere that I can order it again. Then I headed to the airport to turn in my rental car at Enterprise. By this time it was 3:15, so I had about 2 hours to turn in my car, take the shuttle to the airport, check my bags, and go through airport security. Everything was great, I turned in the car, waited a little while on the shuttle, had no problems checking my bag. The problem happened as I was going through Security when I realized that I had forgotten my nice, expensive camera under my seat in the rental car. It had taken me 45 minutes to get through Security, so I didn’t think I had enough time to run to the shuttle, take the shuttle to Enterprise, find my car, wait for the next shuttle and make it back through Security before my flight left. I immediately called Enterprise to report that it was still under the seat of my rental car and to ask if someone could mail it to me. I guess I was being naïve in thinking that that would be the end of it.
I thought it would be easy. I had dropped off my car less than an hour before so it was probably still at the end or towards the middle of the drop off lane with all of the other parked cars waiting for cleaning. They knew where the car was, they knew the make model and the license plate of the car, and they knew exactly where I hid my camera. I figured that the person I reported my camera to would call/radio down to one of the 6 people down there collecting car keys, they could take a couple of minutes to locate my car and I would gladly pay to have my camera shipped to me. Oh no, after 28 hours, 10 phone calls to Enterprise where 4 employees said they had sent a message to someone who could locate my camera and 1 voicemail to the Loss Department, I finally get an automatic email saying that my camera had not been located among the items turned in. So I call back and attempt to get someone that actually is at that location on the phone. After all, I hid the camera very well. Someone looking in the car or cleaning it would not be able to see it (the reason I forgot about it) unless they actually stuck their hand under the driver's seat. I just wanted to make sure someone actually looked under the driver's seat for the camera rather than checking the logs of the day. The employee I talked to explained that they are located off-site but that they would transfer me to the Loss Department at that location. I again left a voicemail, just asking someone to call me to tell me that they looked under the driver's seat. I didn’t hear a responsive, and I kept looking online at the items turned it. I saw a camera had been turned in, so I again called and again left a message, just trying to find out if that was my camera. I finally got fed up and wrote them a nasty review on Google and Yelp and then emailed the review to corporate. That finally got them moving, because I sent that review at 7pm, and they called me by 10am the next day. Of course, by that time the car had been rented out. When it was later returned, the employee from the Lost Department called me back to say that she had personally looked under the seat and it was not there. So my camera was officially stolen, along with the pictures I had taken on the trip. Luckily, I had downloaded most of the pictures to my laptop, so I didn’t lose everything. But I’m still very upset and am currently boycotting Enterprise.
0 Comments
I once again did not get up early and I took my time packing up my things to check out of my hotel. Since it was around lunch time, I decided to head to Wendy’s and pick up something quick on the way to the Cave of the Winds. When I got to the Cave of the Winds, I walked to what I thought was the entrance for the tours. But they were creating a new tour entrance that was supposed to open in a week or 2, so all of the signs were there but there were no people. Luckily, someone who worked there was walking by and told me how to get to the actual entrance, which was on the other side of the parking lot. So I went back across the parking lot to buy a ticket for the cave tour. I wanted to do the Lantern Tour, where you are given lanterns to explore the cave and they tell local ghost lore and history, but I would have had to wait 1.5 hours until the next tour. Since I didn’t want to wait, I decided to go on the Discovery Tour. This tour is mainly about the history of the cave and different features in the cave. I still had a 30 minute wait, but it wasn’t that long. I looked around the gift shop for a while and then browsed through the museum on the history of the cave while I waited. Their had been legends about the caves from the Apaches, but the caves were rediscovered by 2 brothers, George & John Pickett. They were young boys exploring the area. When they were walking around by candlelight, the wind was blowing, causing their candles to flicker. They could also hear the wind rushing through the crevices of the cave. This caused them to explore further and they discovered an entrance to the cave. Not much was done with the cave until 1881 when George Snyder came across the cave. He excavated the cave and started giving tours. The cave is actually one of Colorado’s oldest tourist attractions. Finally it came time for the tour. First we had to take the customary picture in the cave. And then our guide took us through the different rooms of the cave, telling local stories and pointing out geological features. We of course got the standard descriptions of stalagmite and stalactite, but he was really good and funny.
The tour group before us were really slow and we kept catching up to them, which forced us to wait for them to leave so we could continue on our tour. One of the places we waited in there was a quote on the wall that said, “Dreams of mountains as in their sleep they brood on things eternal.” According to our guide, a donor gave millions to help them excavate part of the caverns under 2 conditions: the first that his name be mentioned on every tour (our guide said it, but I forgot the name) and second that his favorite quote be included in the tour, which is how the quote came to be on the wall. The tour lasted about an hour, and I really enjoyed it. At the end of the tour we had the option of buying our picture and other professional pictures taken of the cavern. I’m really glad I bought the pictures now that my camera has been stolen, so I can have something to remember the caves. After the caves, I went down the road a couple of miles to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings. These were dwellings that were built into cliffs 800 to 1,000 years ago from the Anasazi Indians. They were relocated from another site to preserve them, with a few changes such as concrete floors to make it safe for tourists to walk in the rooms. But it was still cool because you could see where these people lived. It was surprising too because the rooms were very small. But I guess they didn’t collect materialistic things like we do, so there was no need for big houses. It was also unique because all of the dwellings were connected. I don’t know how they could live so close together! Though, they were probably all related, so that might explain it… Still, it was cool to be able to wonder through the rooms.
Randomly as you went through the gift shop there would be a floor with artifacts of the Anasazi. One of the displays had replicas of sculls of people from the period and compared them to people living in our period. You could see how the sculls were shaped differently. The teeth were also different and grinded down because they used their teeth to grind down the wheat, which caused a lot of mouth conditions. Another area had baskets that they had woven and mats with different designs on them from different Anasazi periods. I found it interesting. After I was done wondering through the gift shop/museum, I decided it was time to continue on. I had 2 options: drive to Denver, or stick to my itinerary and try the Manitou Incline. The Manitou Incline is over 2,000 steps and you gain about 2,000 feet in elevations as you go up. I was debating whether I should do it. I didn’t feel like it, but it would be good practice for the Inca Trail. Right as I got in my car it started raining, and I took it as a sign from heaven that I wasn’t meant to climb the incline. So I turned my car to Denver and started driving. On the drive I called my Mom and Dad to catch up with them and let them know I was heading to Denver. While I was talking to Dad, he mentioned that I had to try buffalo, because it was amazing. By this time I was close to my hotel, so I pulled in the hotel but their wasn’t a steakhouse that served buffalo close to me so I decided to wait for tomorrow to try buffalo. Instead I went to an Italian restaurant and had some pasta. Afterwards I went back to my hotel for some R&R. I have gotten kinda lazy in getting up in the morning. I got up late again so I went to eat lunch before hitting the trail to go hiking. I went to King’s Chef Diner. It was really good and it was a ton of food. Luckily I grabbed my wallet before heading in and I had cash, because they only accept cash there.
By the time I finished it was about 6pm. I was supposed to also go to Cave of the Winds, but the last tour was a 7pm and I didn’t know if it would be sold out before I got there or not. So I decided to wait until tomorrow to tour the cave.
After all of the traveling that I have been doing, I decided to sleep in a little bit today so I had a late start. I didn’t get started until a little after 11am, and by that point I was hungry so I decided to go get some food first. I didn’t want to go to a fast food chain so I looked for somewhere local. Mountain Shadows Restaurant was listed as one of the best restaurants in Colorado Springs. It was really good. I got a roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes. Afterwards I headed to The Bradenmore Hotel. It looked like a very expensive hotel, but they also own Seven Falls. Apparently they are redoing the parking lot, so they are having people park at the hotel and are shuttling everyone to the falls.
I could have gone further up, but it didn’t look like there was a lot to see and I still had to go to the Garden of the Gods so I decided to take a couple of pictures and then head back down. The way down was a lot scarier than the way up. I knew I was high up on the way up, but I didn’t realize how far up. I definitely had a death grip on the rails on the way down, because every step I took I could see how far I would fall. It was very nerve-wracking! But I eventually made it down the stairs safely. Then I had to hike back down and take the shuttle to my car. My next stop was the Garden of the Gods. I was able to find the Visitor Center easily and I went in to get a trail map and to see the museum, but when I went to enter the Garden of the Gods I got lost. I could see the huge rocks of course, but apparently I went right when I should have gone left. I had to stop and ask for directions, but I eventually made it. I stopped at the first parking lot, which was pretty large and was able to find a parking spot. On the map there was another parking lot closer to the center of the where all of the rocks were, so I was going to park there to hit the trail but when I pulled in there wasn’t a parking spot so I had to circle the park on the loop and come back to the first parking lot I pulled into. I didn’t realize it but it also accessed the same loop I wanted to walk.
I didn’t take long so I could hit my final spot in the Garden, which was Balanced Rock. I originally thought that someone put the rock on stone platform and it just balanced, but no, it has actually been caused my hundreds of years of erosion. So I guess one day it will reach the point where it will no longer be balanced. But of course I had to take pictures of it now. By this point it was after 5pm. I could have done something else, but I just decided to head back to my hotel so I could get some pictures uploaded on Facebook.
Since I couldn’t hike Gray and Torrey Peak yesterday, my plan was to hike them today. So I set my alarm and woke up early, but I couldn’t get out of bed. I had no energy to get up. So I ended up laying in bed until 10am and I decided not to go hiking today. I didn’t really need to. My purpose in going on these Colorado hikes is to determine how I would handle the Inca Trail. Hiking a 14er was just to show me how I re-acted to the high altitude, which I found out when I was on Mt. Evans. So I decided to take an off day. I eventually got out of bed and checked out. I was starving by then, so I decided to head towards my first stop and find something on the way. My first stop was Dinosaur Ridge and it was packed with no parking, so I looked up food places around there. I found a little breakfast café not far from there with good reviews. I got an omelet there and it was excellent.
As the sea dried up, Dinosaur Ridge was one of the locations of the beach by the water and many dinosaurs passed along here traveling in different directions. It is hard to imagine that Colorado once did not have all of the mountains and had a tropical climate! Also in the museum were different dinosaur bones that had been discovered in the area and replicas of what the different dinosaurs in the area looked like. After I had stalled for long enough, I went back outside to get in line for the tour. We boarded a small van and started on our tour. Our guide told us everything I had learned from the museum and then we took off. On the route, he showed us imprints in the rock which were once seaweed or other plants that live on the ocean floor. We didn’t stop so I didn’t get a picture.
The tracks in the picture are also not black. The people at Dinosaur Ridge colored in the best tracks with charcoal so they can be more easily seen. The tracks were made by Eolambias, Acrocanthosaurs, and Ornithomimids. From the tracks, we can see an adult dinosaur and his/her baby walking along the shore. It is funny, because the adult tracks are in a straight line, while the baby dinosaur’s tracks wander around; much like children/baby animals today. Also, in a few places you can see circles cut into the rock. This was caused by people drilling into the rock to steal a dinosaur print. Our guide told us a story about one of these stolen prints. A guy was moving into his dorm room and someone had propped the door open with the rock containing the print. The guy thought it was cool, so he took it. Years later, after he had graduated, he wanted to find out more about the footprint, so he brought it to Dinosaur Ridge. They realized that it was one of their stolen tracks, and the print was returned to its rightful owners. It is now in the museum.
After our guide gave us his spiel and we took pictures, we got back on the bus to return to the parking lot where we started. I was done here, so I got in my car to drive a couple miles down the road to Red Rock Amphitheatre.
My final stop on my way to Colorado Springs was a Roxborough State Park. This place wasn’t on my original list, but when I found out that Dinosaur Ridge was a National Natural Landmark I decided to see if there were anymore close by. Roxborough State park was one of them and on my way to Colorado Springs so I decided to stop by. When I pulled up, there was no attendant in the booth to pay the entrance fee, but there was a sign to pay the kiosk. I looked everywhere for the kiosk but I couldn’t find it so I drove on. I finally reached the end of the road and there was a parking lot. All of the car either had a Colorado state park pass or a yellow printed thing in the windshield. I assumed this came from the kiosk I couldn’t find. I was just about to head back down there to look again when I saw a sign for the visitor’s center. I figured I could by entrance there and I was right. I also found out that they sign came in before the kiosks, so I didn’t miss it. It wasn’t there.
After my hike, I tried to go to Sonic to get some frozen custard only to discover that they don’t sell it any longer. Or that location doesn’t sell it. I was really sad, but not sad enough to leave without some soft serve. And then I got back on the road to complete my drive to Colorado Springs. Once I got there, I went straight to the hotel for some R&R.
My original plan for the day was to get up early and hike Gray’s and Torrey’s Peak, both of which are 14ers, meaning they are over 14,000 feet above sea level. When I woke up, I decided to check the weather and found out that there was a 80% chance of rain today. I also read current reviews of the peaks and read that there is still snow on the path. Snow + rain = me busting my butt on the ground. So I went to Plan B.
Our next stop was at the silver mines. I and a bunch of other people who had paid extra for the tour got off. They went over some safety measures and then split us up into groups. I was on the Everett tour, and my group got to eat lunch and pan for gold first. Panning for gold is not easy. We got 2 buckets and a bag of dirt. We had to put the dirt and some water in the first pan and shake it up a little so the gold could settle to the bottom of the pan since it is heavier than dirt. Then, we filled the 2nd pan with water and holding the first one at an angle, gently created waves to take away the top layer of dirt. The pans had ridges on them that caught the gold. We had to keep doing that until we found the gold at the bottom. They then put them in a little tube for us to keep as a souvenir. After panning for gold, I went to eat while we waited for the first group to be done in the mine. It was hot dogs and pretty good. Then I went and petted the donkeys. There were 2 of them, and they are both famous. The big one that I got to pet won the donkey version of the Triple Crown. The smaller one is the mascot for the Colorado School of Mines, which is the engineering school in Denver. She also talked about the different jobs people did at the mine. There were children that worked in the mine. They were called powdermonkies. Their job was to light the dynamite and then run, which was very dangerous. But the children were seen as disposable, because they could always make more. Also, many of the children were orphans, so they didn’t have a family to worry about them. The miners were in the mine for 10 hours straight, so when they had to use the bathroom they would yell “necessary” and the children would bring them the dynamite box to do the #2 in and take it out to the stream to dump. Our guide also showed us where the adults worked pounding iron rods into the mine. It was really dangerous work and accidents happened frequently. There was also the dust in the air which caused a lot of health issues and blindness. We went a little deeper in the mine but couldn’t go far because it was all caved in. The employees at the Georgetown Loop Railroad have started excavating it. The mine caved in because another mine owned by a different company met the Everett mine. The miners started throwing rocks at each other, with the Everett miners winning. The other miners snuck back in late one evening and set off dynamite, caving in the mine and trapping 12 people inside. The Georgetown Loop Railroad people hope to eventually reconnect the 2 mines.
My next stop was the Coors Brewery. They offer free tours, and since I have been on the Guinness and Anheuser Busch one I decided to go. It took me a while to find where the tours were since the place is so big, but I eventually found the parking lot. From the parking lot, they shuttle people to the main building for a tour. It was about an hour wait, but I decided to do it. Only a limited number of people were allowed on the shuttle at a time, which is why there was a long wait. One of the Coors employees counted out gold tickets and handed them to the people in line based on the number of people in the group. If there were more people in the group than she had tickets left, she went down the line until the shuttle was completely filled. I figured that eventually there would be an odd group and 1 seat left and I would be able to get on early. And I was right, I only waited about 15 minutes before she was looking for 1 person to fill the shuttle and I got to skip the line.
My final stop was Mt. Evans. The drive up was really pretty, but also really scary. There were no guardrails on the entire drive up and there was a straight drop-off on some of those curves. Luckily, since it was late I didn’t have to pass a lot of cars so I could take up the entire lane. On the way up I didn’t stop that often to take pictures because there wasn’t a lot of places to pull off. I did stop at Summit Lake, which was pretty but it was really cold outside so I just took a quick picture and then went back to my car to finish driving up.
I tried putting my address into my phone to get back to my hotel at the top of Mt. Evans but I didn’t have service. I tried again at the bottom and I still didn’t have service. Luckily, I remembered the way I came in so I just retraced my drive back to the highway until I got cell phone service and I could plug in my hotel address.
Since I got in late yesterday, I had to wait until the office opened at 9am to check in and check out. So I was behind schedule of waking up early to go hike the Timberland Falls trail. I got further behind because I also had to stop and eat breakfast. I had a fast breakfast at McDonald’s in Estes Park and then drove to Rocky Mountain National Park. I then waited in line for at least 30 minutes to pay the entrance fee of $25 to enter the park, so I didn’t enter until about 11 am. When I was paying, I saw a sign saying “Bear Lake Road Restricted Access.” Since that was the road I was planning on going on, I asked the park ranger what that was about and she said that it was so crazy over there that they weren’t letting people in. She recommended that I drive up to the visitor center because the views were really pretty and try Bear Lake Road in the afternoon.
I finally made it to Bear Lake Road at about 2pm. I drove down it hoping to find a parking spot at the trailhead so I could hike to Timberland Falls or at least to The Loch, which is on the route. On my way down, I checked and there was no parking. So I turned around at the bottom of the path and checked the trailhead again on my way back up. Just as I was pulling through, a couple had just finished their hike and were heading to their car. So I waited for them. Beside me, there was a parked car which was parked in a no parking area. The couple was taking their sweet time pulling out, and a line formed behind me. So a ranger came and said I had to move. I told her I was waiting for the couple to pull out so I could park and she said I had to move and just do the turn around. So I did, and I pulled back up just in time to see that parked car pull into the spot I was waiting on. I was so pissed!! I cussed him out in my car as I drove back up the trail to the Park & Ride because there was no other parking spots. At the Park & Ride, there is a shuttle that takes you down to the trail. The only issue is that the last shuttle back leaves at 7pm, and if you aren’t on the shuttle you have to walk back to the Park & Ride, which is a good 2 miles uphill. I knew that I wouldn’t make it to Timberland Falls, but I could possibly make it to The Loch, which is on that route. The only issue was that it was a 5 mile round trip hike and by the time the shuttle got to the trail head it was about 2:30. I usually take about an hour a mile to hike, so that would have me back at the trailhead at 7:30, meaning I would miss the shuttle. I could have tried to push myself to be faster, but I didn’t want to risk missing the last shuttle. So I took the shuttle down to the end and hiked a different trail. The trail is rated as moderate on All Trails, and it certainly wasn’t easy. The first mile was paved and it had a steep incline. I kept having to stop to take breaks and let people pass me because I was so slow. After the first mile, I got above most of the treeline, so I could start taking pictures of the mountains, which were really pretty.
I made it back to the trail head at about 6:45pm and got on the shuttle to return to my car. A lot of people also caught that shuttle so it was packed full. I wasn’t able to get a seat so I had to stand at the back. There wasn’t a pole to hold onto so I had to use the overhead one that I could barely reach or the straps dangling down from it. The straps offered no support especially on that windy road up. So I had to reach for the overhead pole, but with my backpack my hand kept going numb so I had to switch often. I even fell into the people behind me at one point. But I eventually made it to my car. My hotel for the night was in Georgetown, which is a little over 2 hours away from Rocky Mountain National Park. It was about 8pm and I was starving, and I had been visualizing a Chili’s cookie all day so I chose a route that took me by a Chili’s and had dinner there. Then I had to drive an extra hour to my motel. The office stays open until 10 pm, so I was late. The office guy called me and made arrangements to put my key under the doormat of my room. But when I got to my room at 10:45pm, there was no key. So I had to call the office and the guy walked over to give me my key. Then I got in bed and went to sleep.
I was supposed to fly in late today and then I would just go to the hotel for tomorrow. But my manager (Michelle) let me work on Memorial Day so I could have today off. I also booked with Southwest, so there were no change fees to change my flight for an earlier one. So that is how I ended up arriving in Denver at 8:30 am. Then I had to get a rental car and drive out to Estes Park (1.5 hour drive). Once I got to Estes Park, I decided I needed some food before hitting the trail so I went to DQ and got a chili cheese dog. While I was there, I decided to fill up the water bladder that Dad gave me for my birthday in the bathroom sink. I got water everywhere, and there were no paper towels for me to clean it up. Oh well… Then I got in my car and drove to my first hiking trail: Twin Sisters Peak. I got to the trail about noon, which is pretty late. You are supposed to be beneath the tree line by noon, so you should have already made it to the top by then. Which I didn’t do… But I was still determined to try to make it to the top. So I got my hiking gear together, which was quite the experience since the water bladder I had filled up had a leak. I couldn’t hike with a leaking bladder, so I transferred the water to my Camelbak water bladder (getting water everywhere) and then got the rest of my gear and started the hike. I parked at the bottom of the trail, which my All Trails app told me to do, across from Lily Pond. I didn’t know that there was a road by the parking lot where you could drive up a mile and park on the side of the road. So I hiked an extra mile that I didn’t need to, which was sad.
Towards to top it was really cold. I had a rain jacket in my backpack, but it was towards the bottom of the pack so I couldn’t get to it easily so I just kept going with no jacket. At one point it even snowed for like 30 seconds. As I got closer to the top, I even saw clumps of snow still melting, which I thought was weird since it is still summer.
I finally reached my car at about 8:30 pm, just in time to watch the sun set over Lily Pond. By that point I was exhausted after hiking down 4 miles in 2.5 hours with no breaks. Note to self, the latest time to start hiking down in the future is 5 o’clock. Then I had to type in my hotel address into my GPS so I could go get some well deserved rest. The road to the hotel had a lot of curves since we were in the mountains, and by this point it was completely dark. It was pretty nerve-wracking, but I did eventually make it to the hotel. And I still had a room, the front desk girl called me and left a voicemail when I was hiking to tell me where to pick up my room key since the office was closing. So I finally made it safely into my room and I collapse on the bed without taking a shower. Every footstep hurt! I went to bed about 10pm. |
Categories
All
Archives
June 2022
AuthorThese are details from my adventures around the world. |